The Corpse Vanishes

source: The Corpse Vanishes

"Bela Lugosi revels in his role as European horticulturalist (sic) Dr. Lorenz in this outlandish tale of horror and dementia. The good doctor's aging wife needs fluids harvested from the glands of young virgins in order to retain her youth and beauty. What better place for the doctor to maintain his supply than at the alter, where he kidnaps the unsuspecting brides before they can complete their vows? Sedating them into a coma-like state, he brings them to his mansion to collect his tainted bounty," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. That brief description is much more entertaining and imaginative than the movie. ** The Corpse Vanishes (5/8/42) Wallace Fox ~ Bela Lugosi, Luana Walters, Elizabeth Russell

Bela Lugosi appeared in several of these low budget chillers for Monogram Studios in the 1940's and The Corpse Vanishes is one of the better ones. Bela plays a mad scientist who kidnaps young brides and kills them and then extracts fluid from their bodies so he can keep his ageing wife looking young. After a reporter and a doctor stay the night at his home and discover he is responsible for the brides' deaths, the following morning they report these murders to the police and the mad scientist is shot and drops dead shortly afterwards. You have got almost everything in this movie: the scientist's assistants consist of an old hag, a hunchback and dwarf (her sons), a thunderstorm and spooky passages in Bela's house. Bela and his wife find they sleep better in coffins rather than beds in the movie. The Corpse Vanishes is worth a look, especially for Bela Lugosi fans. Great fun. Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

"The Corpse Vanishes" may not be for everyone. It's basically Bela Lugosi as his typical mad scientist, this time killing off brides to inject their glands into his aging wife or something. The plot isn't anything new. Then a female reporter gets involved, and it turns into Torchy Blaine vs. Dracula. But we watch "The Corpse Vanishes" for pure Lugosi, doing his stuff: yelling at his old servant woman, mercy killing her freakish giant son, yelling at his dwarf servant, calmly and unctuously lying to the reporter and her doctor love interest, and then losing out in the climactic finale. It's your beautiful B&W horror thriller with secret passages beneath the mad doctor's house, with flaming hearses off on the side of the road acting as distractions for motorcades. Sure, Lugosi doesn't evoke much pity in this one- not the beleaguered vampire, the dying old man, or the tragic monster- but the same madman who dedicated himself to creating a "new breed of atomic supermen." His eyes glimmering with insanity, murder, and misguided love for his shrewish wife, he vows to lay a trap for our heroine. (And what do we care for our heroine anyway? We can see her kind in any movie. But Lugosi...) You won't appreciate "The Corpse Vanishes" if you're one of those Wes Craven-obsessed latter-day horror fans who need real-looking blood to quench their cinematic thirst. Or if you're the type who'll bypass it for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" or "Saw III." But do those have murdered freak servants lying on basement floors? Or mean-eyed dwarfs who get left behind for dead? No. No, they don't. And no toxic hybrid orchids, either.

Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi) drugs young brides, kidnaps their bodies and takes spinal fluid from their necks to keep his 80 year old wife looking young. OK--it's not "Citizen Kane" but the plot is kind of interesting (in a ridiculous sort of way) and they throw in some unbelievable horror cliches--i.e. Lorenzs' assistants include an old lady, her idiot son (who Lugosi whips at one point) and a dwarf! Unfortunately they throw in an extremely annoying female reporter and a totally unmotivated romance. Also it is a Monogram picture, so production values are low (to put it mildly). Still, it does work and Lugosi gives a very good performance.

You've got to love a film that so jovially refers to the then occurring horrors of Operation Barbarossa. This one has good old Bela being a mad scientist stealing brides to extract spinal fluid to keep his wife alive, or something. He's pretty manic here, creeping about the place. I'm surprised that his crazy scheme managed to last so long, considering how blasé he is about the whole operation. Unluckily he's got a nosey reporter on his trail (and a woman to boot! God forbid!), who won't stop pestering the poor fellow. Why can't these liberal women just leave a murderous scientist alone? Added bonus: he has both a dwarf to order about and a deranged hick to beat, and we all know how much Bela needs to beat underlings. This flick was a good laugh to be honest. Light hearted fun.

**SPOILERS** Until his film career was resurrected by the great innovated as well as bad movie director Ed Wood in 1953 Bela Lugosi's future was going down hill fast in both his work in films and his personal life. With Bela staring in bottom of the basement horror movies and having a very serious addiction to heroin, that almost killed him. It wasn't until that director Wood gave him another chance in his low-budget and later, sadly long after both Bela and Wood's deaths, highly acclaimed horror and pseudo-message films. Films way ahead of their times about transvestites and the danger of Nuclear destruction. Subjects that were very close to Ed Wood's heart and mind. It was these at first obscure but thought-provoking movies that put Bela back on center stage. Working for small film production companies like Monogram Pictures "The Corspe Vanises" is one of the many movies that Bela made during the 1940's that were elevated to where they were entertaining and remembered now by just his presents in them. In the movie Bela plays not only the mad scientist/doctor but also the mad herbalist Dr. Lorenz. Dr. Lorenz needs young and beautiful women to use in making his old and crazy wife the Countess Lorenz, Elizabeth Russell, young and beautiful again. Dr. Lorenz developed this orchid that he has secretly delivered to the brides just before their wedding that not only knocks them out but ends up killing them. Lorenz and one of his henchmen Mike, George Eldrdge, wait outside the church with a hearse to pick up the body and take it back to his lab to extract some fluid for the dead brides neck and use it to rejuvenate his mad and elderly wife. The predictable plot has newspaper reporter Pat Hunter, Luana Walters, go to the Lorenz mansion to get the big scoop about the dead and missing brides. Meeting there young and handsome Dr. Foster(Tristram Coffin), who's also there as Dr. Lorenz's guest, they both fall in love and almost end up becoming Dr. Lorenz's next victims. Even though Dr. Foster isn't a young woman or bride he's still subjected to Dr. Lorenz's mad and crazy experiments. Dr. Lorenz's helper at the lab Fagah, Minerua Urecal, ends this whole insanity by doing in both Dr. Lorenz and the Countess at the end of the movie by stabbing them to death. This happens as the mad doctor was about to do in Pat for her fluids to keep the Countess from going stale and nuts. Dr. Foster also comes to Pat's rescue with the police but, as usual, they would have been too late to save Pat if it wasn't for Fagah's actions. Fagah had in in for the crazed Doctor Lorenz after he killed her son Angel, Frank Morgan a prizefighter in real life, who must have taken one two many hard shots to the head during his professional boxing career. Angel was getting a little too involved with the Doctors experiments and the doc didn't like that one bit. Dr. Lorenz was also responsible for the death of Fagah's other son Toby, Angelo Rossitto, a 2 foot 11 inch midget. The diminutive Toby was shot to death by the police and left to die by the fleeing Dr. Lorenz as they attempted to steal another June Bride at a local wedding reception. With Dr. Lorenz out of the picture and no fear of being killed and kidnapped by him and his stooges Pat and Dr. Foster are finally married at the end of the movie.

Only die-hard fans of BELA LUGOSI movies will manage to get a thrill out of THE CORPSE VANISHES. This is one of those poverty row quickies that was obviously filmed on a meager budget with shabby looking sets and blurry photography (at least from the print I watched on TCM). The story is another one of those foolish items about a mad scientist who needs fresh young blood to keep his Countess wife (ELIZABETH RUSSELL) young and alive. Otherwise, she's in pitifully bad state needing to be rejuvenated. The scheme is to snatch brides at the altar and carry them off into his hearse waiting outside. He's a body snatcher while his victims are still alive. None of it looks as though they spent more than three days shooting the film with only first takes surviving the cut. Otherwise, how else to explain the dull rendering of dialog with only LUANA WALTERS (as a Lois Lane type of reporter) able to make her lines sound halfway convincing? This Lugosi entry is hardly worth a peek. Bad acting, unconvincing and unnatural dialog and weak bits of humor. Summing up: Forget about it, even for Halloween it's a dud.

Bela Lugosi as creepy insane scientist who uses orchids to woo brides in order to steal life essence for aged wife. The midget in this film is hilarious!! A lot of freaks, plus a lot of padding and no plot makes watching this film a nightmare. I loved how all the pieces fell together in the end in typical Hollywood fashion. The story never gets interesting, and you feel helpless as you watch. Usually I'd score bore flicks like this one low, but the midget added just enough creepiness and entertainent to gain a couple more points.

Modest, insignificant but nevertheless amusing black & white horror that stars Bela Lugosi as a (surprise surprise!) sinister doctor who kidnaps young girls on their wedding day. Not for the cause of science this time, but to donate eternal youth and beauty to his wife, the countess. He breeds a special type of orchids (that's right, he's also a horticulturist) that paralyzes the girls and he picks up the bodies with a fake hearse. The screenplay doesn't really bother to explain what exactly happens to these girls afterwards and neither are we informed about Bela's relation with the family of misfits that lives in his mansion and works for him. In fact, "The Corpse Vanishes" is one giant incoherent mess yet I can't bring myself to bash it entirely. The basic plot idea is good, there are some moments of creepiness (when the female journalist discovers the dungeon, for example) and the acting performances are overall decent. Lugosi is on automatic pilot here but I especially liked the countess character! She's a hostile and egocentric shrew and I loved how she got so hysterical all the time. What can I say…I have a thing for evil women.